There are flowers in my house today, both cut and potted. Both arrangements were unexpected, and both have touched me deeply.

The cut flowers, arranged in a teacup, were a birthday gift from my friend Judith. As it happens, we share a birthday, but I didn't send her a gift this year. I sent instead a birthday card with an ornament attached, one that required a padded envelope. It recalled for me the first birthday card she sent me, nearly thirty years ago. It had a picture of a Renaissance-style woman with a lace or thread overlay -- something delicate and unusual.

Judith and I have known each other since I was a rookie teacher and she the experienced mentor. Of all the non-relative friends I am in touch with regularly, there is only one whom I have known longer. 

We are a lot alike. We share a passion for literature, a reverence for the past, a preference for the traditional, and an abhorrence of the tawdry. We set high standards for ourselves, although she is less likely to compromise than I am. Our friendship has endured both personal and professional turmoil, career moves, and philosophical differences. She is one of the people I could call at 3 a.m., if I had to.

We have both left the educational establishment where we met. When I left, someone said the school was losing its poetic soul. I said that when Judith left it had lost its conscience. That, I think, was worse.

The teacup in which the flowers arrived is decorated with a subtle rendering of pink and white azaleas on a black border. Both the theme and the colors are perfect for my study. Curiously, Judith has never seen my study, nor have I ever really described it to her in detail. But such a perfect fit has happened before. Once she gave me two coffee mugs shaped like cats, unaware that they looked exactly like the two cats in residence here at the time. 

On another occasion, she gave me an antique children's book by an author whose name is quite like mine, without knowing that the author came from the Pennsylvania city where I do much of my historical research, and that the Swedish Christmas custom depicted in the tale is my very favorite.

That kind of synchronicity is a rare and wonderful thing. But then, Judith is a rare and wonderful friend.

The potted daffodils were presented to me yesterday on the occasion of the last meeting of the "Time It Was . . ." writing workshop that I held in my home. For six weeks, five people have come every Thursday to share the stories of their lives. 

This class was supposed to be held as part of an adult education program hosted by a local department store. The store provides the space and handles the advertising and promotion. This winter was the first time I had offered my workshop through this means, and the experience started out less than positive. 

The store had written the copy describing my course and printed it without letting me see it -- it was not only unclear, but misleading. They had also set the fee for the course and published it without consulting me -- $10 for a total of 15 hours of instruction and critique. (My published fee is $75.)

When only five people signed up, the store cancelled the class, three days before it was set to begin. The store gave me the sign-up list. I called every name on it, and they agreed to come to my home. It was a bit of a squeeze around my kitchen table, but evidently my students did not experience that as a barrier.

Of the five, only one was younger than I -- a corporate attorney who found herself available during the afternoon because of "downsizing." Among the others were a woman who had grown up the daughter of an Orthodox priest, an Egyptian-born Jew who'd left her homeland due to religious persecution, a chiropractor who is the only person in his family interested in preserving the stories of his parents and grandparents, and a woman who sought to tell the stories of her father and her brother -- ordinary men of heroic character.

I did a lot of lecturing and demonstrating and sharing my own work that first session. As the weeks progressed, there was less and less of me, to the point where I became a true facilitator -- I provided and organized the space, gave them a few writing prompts and cautions about cliches, and let them go.

The card they included with the daffodils referred to me as a "master teacher." Although the term is flattering, I'd like to think I did what any writing teacher does -- bring out what is already within the student. In the end, it is I who have benefitted the most from having known these people.